Anger over latest escape of young salmon

call to move fish farms to land-based units

By ken jones

Published:

A demand was made yesterday for fish farms to be moved away from wild salmon rivers or to be put in self-contained land-based units after up to 100,000 salmon smolts escaped into a Highland loch.

A leading fishery board official warned: “Indigenous fish could be driven into extinction before someone has the sense to put a stop to this madness. With yet another disastrous escape like this, we are rapidly getting closer to that day.”

Juvenile Atlantic smolts, each weighing 70gms, escaped through a hole in a net at a Marine Harvest fish farm in freshwater Loch Lochy, in the Great Glen near Fort William, at the end of February.

The latest incident has been condemned by the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards and the Rivers and Fisheries Trusts, which say it comes on the back of a year that had seen the highest number of escapes in the past five years.

Andrew Wallace, managing director of both organisations, said: “This latest escape suggests that the industry’s appalling record on containment is continuing.

“It has occurred at a new so-called ‘state-of-the-art’ farm which, despite industry fanfare, has proved incapable of withstanding the impact of moderate winds.”

He said it had made a mockery of Marine Harvest’s mission statement to minimise the environmental impact of its activities and operate in harmony.

He added: “Relocation of freshwater salmon smolt farms must now become a reality. They should either be located in lochs which are not part of wild salmon rivers or, ideally, in self-contained land-based units, as is practiced in other countries. It is inexcusable that they are placed within important wild salmon river systems such as the Lochy”.

Jon Gibb, clerk to the Lochaber District Salmon Fishery Board, said escaped farmed salmon posed a major risk to the genetic integrity and survival of wild salmon populations.

He added: “Just a few miles away there are huge non-migratory fish waters, such as Loch Laggan, that could easily accommodate many of these smolt farms. Yet they continue to proliferate in pristine salmon and sea trout lochs.

“My worry is that indigenous stocks, such as the famous Lochy salmon run, could be driven into extinction before someone has the sense to put a stop to this madness.”

Marine Harvest’s freshwater production manager Gideon Pringle said it regretted the loss of fish, which had happened during bad weather which made inspection difficult. As a result the tear was not noticed initially.